Raid (2003) Reviews

• Finland's own action hero

  Ol_Gaffer2003-03-03

  Raid (the superb Kai Lehtinen) returns to Finland to find his ex-girlfriend Tarja (Mari Rantasila) only to hear that she has been killed in an arson made on the public voice press headquarters. Grieving, Raid begins his own investigation of what happened. Meanwhile Captain Jansson (Oiva Lohtander)of the Finnish police is investigating the murder of a protester during the world bank meeting held in Helsinki. Soon he realizes that all clues might be pointing into the wrong direction and with his friends, officers Huusko (Pekka Huotari) and Susisaari (Kirsti Väänänen) begin to take a closer look into the investigation. In the background spins a conspiracy and a strange charecter known as the legioner, but what do all these have to do with the same magazine as the one that Tarja worked for? While Finland hasn't had a chance to boast with great movies until now with "The Man Without A Past" there still have been numerous great movies that have been made here. Considering that money is limited for movies, most have been small budget comedies and drama movies, but finally Finland can say that they have their own action hero. Kai Lehtinen is superb as the quiet Raid and Oiva Lohtander does a fabulous role as the sarcastic Jansson. While the movie has moments of slight clichés such as the Legioner, the whole movie fixes them and allows the movie really to shine. An excellent action movie with a decent plot that allows the audience really to connect with the characters, these are real people not super heroes. 4.5/5

• More powerful, but less believable than the miniseries

  dlfagan2005-06-08

  In June of 2005, the Finnish embassy and the MHz channel arranged a special showing of the RAID sequel at the AFI Silver, just outside Washington DC. We stood in line surrounded by enthusiastic Finnish-Americans. Kai Lehtinen and Tapio Piirainen had flown in, signed autographs and posed for snapshots with fans. The film delivered most of our favorite characters in another involved political conspiracy with economic consequences. Running gags from the series were continued in the film. It was hard to judge if the film was funnier than the series, or if the enthusiastic crowd made it seem more humorous. The events in the series were fictional, but believable. Raid was still the talented and instinctive hero, and Uki, Tarja, Jansson and Sundman were still very believable characters; the actions they took were plausible enough to suspend disbelief. Sundman's relationship with a plump model was intriguing. This film was more action-packed, but it was more difficult to believe that the climactic events could have occurred without serious repercussions for Raid and his cohort. And the film's villain wasn't as memorable as Hammar. After the showing, Lehtinen laughed a lot while he and Piirainen fielded questions from the stage. Kai seemed very surprised and flattered to be a hit in America, but was grounded enough to brush off any talk of leaving Finland to pursue a Hollywood career.

• Todays Helsinki with strong cyberpunk feeling.

  Munter2003-02-03

  Raid was very popular tv-serie in Finland couple of years ago. It was a good story of dirty political deals including many human casualties. There were two kind of main characters. Polices and villains. Police leading characters investigate a case that was too hot to handle. Even they own superiors constantly try to brake the investigations and many finish leading politics were involved. At the same time professional hitman called Raid try to investigate the same thing for his own reasons. These both sides had very different working ways, but they had a mutual goal, so policemen try to look in a different way as much as they can when Raid handle a situation his way. Movie Raid is a sequel to this tv-serie. Like tv-serie it is very comical and it has superior dialogs and absolutely not any boring characters. Film is very good and surely worth of watching. There was a certain feeling that too many original tv-serie characters was put in the movie just because they are fun comical sidekicks, but that is the most common problem of all sequels.

• (minor spoiler)Funny actionmovie in the line of "Last Action Hero"

  Sampparound2003-02-04

  This movie has a nice sense of humour. The hero, Raid, is a renegade adventurer who is surrounded by all kinds of funny sidekicks. Like "Last Action Hero" it exaggerates the macho of the hero, to the point where you can´t help but to laugh. Also the villains are pure evil and totally depraved of feelings. But unlike "LAH", the hero doesn´t try or even want to get in touch with his softer side. The intrigue of the movie is that an political activist gets killed by the police during a demonstration. The story then spins about Raid all the way up to an international money laundry operation which includes a surprising actor...

• Wish There Would Have Been More

  socrates172011-12-03

  I had loved the 2000 series and didn't even know that this sequel existed until reading the blurb on the brand new 1st English translation of a Raid novel Raid and the Blackest of Sheep. (Thank you, Ice Cold Crime!!!!!) I immediately launched on an internet search and managed to get a copy. I found it simply wonderful - all the more so after having read the cited novel. Unlike my fellow reviewer above, I really appreciated the inclusion of so many characters from the series (Sunderman, the Cowboy, et al.) OK. The Cowboy was there as a reference point only, but the series was so good that I appreciated every link between the two. The plot is complex and, yes, at times a little implausible, but it is also not to be taken entirely seriously. There is much of what I have come to learn from having watched all of Aki Kaurismaki's oeuvre is Suomi humor. The acting was great. The characters stayed in character. The music, which echoed that of the series, was great. There are many scenes where the countryside of Finland looks much more beautiful than it did in the series - almost to the extent that I wonder if people had kvetched about the series giving the country a bad name. I will be watching my DVDs of both the series and this film many times over the coming years and if you get them on DVD so will you.